Esra Dalfidan

Her Music

As a singer she is difficult to categorize, but it would be fair to say that the core of her music is founded on the broad carpet of musical styles that we call jazz. Her fondness of Turkish and Azeri traditional music gives all of her songs and compositions an oriental accent, sometimes passionate, then melancholic and yearning, and always full of surprises, both in its melodic lines, tempi, and phrasing.

Her own compositions are crisp and precise and full of irregular and changing tempi, 5/4, 7/4, and more, without ever sounding forced. Each of her songs tells a story, and leads the listener on a journey through the singer's and listener's landscape of memories and emotions. It's probably not for nothing that her CD liner notes contain the brief reminder 'Based on a true story'. All this makes for a musical experience quite unlike any other.

Her voice is always on the move. In her songs, the presence and absence of her voice provides a nice balance between her singing and playing time for her band members. She sings words and scats, she is loud, she is soft, she is in ballad mode, she is up tempo. The pure sound of her voice opens up the mind like Coltrane's tenor sax could, when playing tunes like India, Spiritual, Olé. There is a remarkable similarity in timbre and straight sound with no or minimal vibrato. With this variety and complexity the music never sounds complex or difficult, on the contrary, it sounds natural, not least because her band members are so well attuned to her and each other.

To quote the artist herself, from her Myspace site:

The band

Her band is called Fidan, a Turkish word meaning 'twig' or 'branch'.

Influences

As her main influences and source of inspiration Esra mentions the Azeri singer and pianist Aziza Mustafa Zadeh and the Portuguese singer Maria João.
Aziza developed a unique blend of jazz, modern, and Azeri traditional music, called mugam jazz. To get a taste of Aziza's music click here.
Maria João created a style similar to Esra's, mixing jazz, traditional Portuguese, modern and world music. Check out Maria João's fan club's website to see and hear some of her performances.
The Turkish popular singer Nilüfer features as a secondary influence.

Forging ahead

The second half of 2008 is marked by new compositions and collaborations, notably a series of concerts with the Tineke Postma Group, extending into the first half of 2009. Esra also features in an ensemble called Gandhi Bazaar, created and led by Ned McGowan. This group brings together five musicians with various backgrounds in jazz, classical, improvised, traditional Indian, Turkish and Flamenco, creating a form of collective chamber music which uses techniques from all these genres. Particularly remarkable is the interplay between two master percussionists in the group, Indian drummer B.C. Manjunath and Spanish percussionist Enric Montfort. The Gandhi Bazaar concert tour was commissioned by the Dutch Fund for the Performing Arts, and some of the compositions have been created to bring to life texts by the Dutch/Iranian poet Nafiss Nia.

Discography

Colors, November 2008, Challenge Records.
Her debut CD 'Colors' contains 11 tracks: 9 compositions of her own, and two traditional songs from Azerbeidjan.

CounterPoint, March 2010, Challenge Records.
Her second album 'CounterPoint' contains 11 tracks and one Bonus played in a trio line-up with guest musicians Tineke Postma and Olaf Tarenskeen; also 2 poems of Anatolian troubadour Aşık Veysel have been put into music by Esra.

1. Sana bele n'oldu
2. Paradox
3. Bilmem hayalmiydi
4. Aglar Veysel
5. Countdown
6. Waltz for A.
7. Wisdom
8. Ben Seni Sevdigimi
9. Rage
10. Nike Lenya
11. A strange Encounter
BONUS: Feel Free

Awards

Education